CVE-2011-1076

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 v2.0)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2011-10-05 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

net/dns_resolver/dns_key.c in the Linux kernel before 2.6.38 allows remote DNS servers to cause a denial of service (NULL pointer dereference and OOPS) by not providing a valid response to a DNS query, as demonstrated by an erroneous grand.centrall.org query, which triggers improper handling of error data within a DNS resolver key.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 2.6.38 — fixed in 2.6.38

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 2.6.38. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=1362fa078dae16776cd439791c6605b224ea6171
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/03/04/13
http://securitytracker.com/id?1025162
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.38
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git%3Ba=commit%3Bh=1362fa078dae16776cd439791c6605b224ea6171
http://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2011/03/04/13
http://securitytracker.com/id?1025162
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.38

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